Novel Indicators of Anthropogenic Influence on Marine and Coastal Ecosystems

Feist, Blake E.; Levin, Phillip S.

doi:10.3389/fmars.2016.00113

Cited by 20 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…These results are consistent with observations elsewhere in the world, where cumulative exposure conspicuously arises from and markedly intensifies close to coastal cities and at the mouth of rivers draining highly populated areas (e.g., Halpern et al, 2015b;Feist and Levin, 2016;Mach et al, 2017;Stock et al, 2018). These are areas where human activities (e.g., coastal development and shipping) and footprints (e.g., pollution runoff) are most intense (Feist and Levin, 2016), and on which is overlaid a background of natural disturbances (Micheli et al, 2016). They are also the areas in which the most dramatic increases in exposure are expected, with populations increasing more rapidly along coasts than inland (Feist and Levin, 2016).…”

Section: Cumulative Exposuresupporting

confidence: 91%

Characterizing Exposure to and Sharing Knowledge of Drivers of Environmental Change in the St. Lawrence System in Canada

et al. 2020

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Section: Cumulative Exposuresupporting

confidence: 91%

Characterizing Exposure to and Sharing Knowledge of Drivers of Environmental Change in the St. Lawrence System in Canada

et al. 2020

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“…Such stressors can diminish the capa -city of ecosystems to provide important goods and services (Vitousek et al 1997, Worm et al 2006, Doney et al 2012. Marine ecosystems near dense urban populations are especially vulnerable (von Glasow et al 2013, Feist & Levin 2016. Many areas are now protected or subject to remediation, but setting goals for recovery and assessing its success remain difficult because information about the original community state is typically limited to direct observations of living populations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gauging benthic recovery from 20th century pollution on the southern California continental shelf using bivalves from sediment cores

Leonard‐Pingel¹,

Kidwell²,

Tomášových³

et al. 2019

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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Urbanization of coasts creates stresses on adjacent marine communities, but the full impact is seldom known owing to scarce historical records. Paleoecological analysis of sediment cores can be a powerful means of reconstructing baseline benthic communities, but is particularly challenging for continental shelves where dead-shell assemblages are prone to greater time-averaging than in natural sediment sinks such as deltas, coastal bays, and estuaries. We compared temporal changes in the composition of bivalve shell assemblages collected from box cores on the Palos Verdes (southern California, USA) shelf to a 40 yr time series of annually collected living benthic assemblages in the same area in order to calibrate bivalve core assemblages to known changes in community composition during wastewater remediation. Older (pre-1970) core assemblages were then used to reveal the nature of bivalve communities from the early 20 th century and the extent to which present-day communities match, i.e. have recovered to, early urban baselines. Deep bioturbation and only moderate sedimentation rates (0.2 cm yr −1) damp the magnitude and rapidity of changes in core assemblage composition. Despite the geological complexity, bivalve core assemblages (1) detect known late 20 th century dynamics in broad outline, (2) reveal the undocumented rise of chemosymbiont-bearing bivalves during the early 20 th century, and (3) establish that the present-day community is largely but not fully recovered to its pre-effluent, early urban (1900−1930) baseline. Thus, cores capture the nature, timing, and duration of macrobenthic response to 20 th century wastewater, validating this approach for shelf settings with scarce or no historical data.

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“…There is increasing evidence that multiple, often interacting, urban-related drivers affect both foundation species and ecological response to foundation species loss (Lenihan and Peterson 1998, Jackson 2008, Claudet and Fraschetti 2010, Nyström et al 2012, Strain et al 2014, Ferrario et al 2016, Orth et al 2017, although studies evaluating multiple urban stressors simultaneously are rare (O'Brien et al 2019). The abundance of kelps and other important habitat-forming macroalgae is negatively correlated with human population density in several regions, including temperate coasts in Australia and North America (Connell et al 2008, Scherner et al 2013, Feist and Levin 2016, and this is likely linked to gradients in sedimentation and nutrients (Fowles et al 2018).…”

Section: Loss Of Foundation Speciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards an urban marine ecology: characterizing the drivers, patterns and processes of marine ecosystems in coastal cities

Todd

Heery

Loke

et al. 2019

Oikos

186

129

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Human population density within 100 km of the sea is approximately three times higher than the global average. People in this zone are concentrated in coastal cities that are hubs for transport and trade – which transform the marine environment. Here, we review the impacts of three interacting drivers of marine urbanization (resource exploitation, pollution pathways and ocean sprawl) and discuss key characteristics that are symptomatic of urban marine ecosystems. Current evidence suggests these systems comprise spatially heterogeneous mosaics with respect to artificial structures, pollutants and community composition, while also undergoing biotic homogenization over time. Urban marine ecosystem dynamics are often influenced by several commonly observed patterns and processes, including the loss of foundation species, changes in biodiversity and productivity, and the establishment of ruderal species, synanthropes and novel assemblages. We discuss potential urban acclimatization and adaptation among marine taxa, interactive effects of climate change and marine urbanization, and ecological engineering strategies for enhancing urban marine ecosystems. By assimilating research findings across disparate disciplines, we aim to build the groundwork for urban marine ecology – a nascent field; we also discuss research challenges and future directions for this new field as it advances and matures. Ultimately, all sides of coastal city design: architecture, urban planning and civil and municipal engineering, will need to prioritize the marine environment if negative effects of urbanization are to be minimized. In particular, planning strategies that account for the interactive effects of urban drivers and accommodate complex system dynamics could enhance the ecological and human functions of future urban marine ecosystems.

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Novel Indicators of Anthropogenic Influence on Marine and Coastal Ecosystems

Cited by 20 publications

References 64 publications

Characterizing Exposure to and Sharing Knowledge of Drivers of Environmental Change in the St. Lawrence System in Canada

Characterizing Exposure to and Sharing Knowledge of Drivers of Environmental Change in the St. Lawrence System in Canada

Gauging benthic recovery from 20th century pollution on the southern California continental shelf using bivalves from sediment cores

Towards an urban marine ecology: characterizing the drivers, patterns and processes of marine ecosystems in coastal cities

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